New features in PowerPoint between 2016 and May 2019

PowerPoint has seen a host of changes over the last 3 years - this blog summarises the main ones.

The new ruler

If you choose to display the Draw tab of the ribbon (you'll need to customise the PowerPoint ribbon to do this), you can show the ruler:

The ruler icon on the Draw tab of the ribbon.

The ruler is great for drawing straight lines - and there's no danger of missing it:

Can you spot the ruler in this screen shot?

There are all sorts of keyboard short-cuts, mouse tricks and finger-swipes that you can use to control the ruler, as explained here.

Morphing transitions

This is a clever idea, which must have been a nightmare to program!

The Morph transition tool.

So the idea is that you create a slide, then duplicate it.  On the second slide you move the components of the first slide around:

If I apply a morph transition effect, when I run this presentation as a slide show the text box and picture will transition from their position in slide 1 to their position in slide 2.

It looks more impressive in action!

Recording

There's a new Recording tab that you can show on the ribbon to show all of the recording tools in one place:

Customise your ribbon and tick the Recording tab to show an appropriate range of recording tools, as below.

Here's what the tab looks like:

Here I'm recording an entire slide show.

Creating zooms

A zoom is like a dashboard for a screen show (read on ...).  Here's how to create a zoom:

How to insert a summary zoom (see below for what this means).

When you choose to create a summary zoom, you can choose which pages to include:

You can tick the pages that you want to include - here I've omitted one deliberately.

This then creates a summary section slide:

PowerPoint creates a new type of slide.

When you run the presentation, you can click on any slide to zoom to it (the effect is quite nice).  When PowerPoint has finished showing that slide, you will be returned to the summary slide.

Text highlighter and colouring website links

Like Word, PowerPoint now has a highlighter pen:

Did this really not exist in PowerPoint before?

In a similar would-you-believe-it vein, you can now colour the font of hyperlinks:

Again, was this really not possible before?

Removing backgrounds is easier

It's now easier to remove backgrounds from pictures (at least, most types):

Before ...	... and after

To do this, use this picture formatting tool: 

The Remove Background tool.

You can choose automatic background removal (as I did above), or mark the areas you want to keep:

Use this tool to mark the areas that you want to keep.

If you choose the area that you want to keep, you can draw this on the picture:

Choosing which bits of President Obama you want to keep.

Exporting to 4K video size

When you choose to create a video ...

The menu option to export a presentation to a video.

... you can now choose ultra high-definition resolution:

The new option to choose 4K file size.

Changes not specific to PowerPoint

In addition to the changes listed above, don't forget the following new features which I listed in the general Office page at the start of this blog series: